In today’s newsletter I discuss just how big our $40 trillion dollar national debt really is in terms every American can understand, Nvidia and a bunch of other AI related companies crushed their quarterly earnings, Tesla is ending production of its Solar Roof product, Meghan Markle might get back into acting if anyone still cares, cash is no longer king in real estate sales, SpaceX s spending $100 billion dollars to create their Louisiana Starbase which they plan to launch 1,000’s of rocket launches from each year, Magnus Carlsen defended his Esports World Cup chess title, and the world lost Dolly Parton this week and that is truly sad.

Let’s get into it!

It’s next to impossible to put our $40 trillion dollar national debt into terms that the average American can understand. I know, because I’ve tried…and failed. As it stands now, if the United States were to hold out a donation can and ask every American citizen to chip in to help pay off the national debt, then every single American citizen would be on the hook for coughing up $117,000 dollars to pay off the nation’s debt. I know I don’t have that kind of cheddar lying around, and I’m guessing you don’t either, but that’s how big of an issue the United States’ national debt is.

So today I’m going to share with you (3) examples of just how big $40 trillion dollars really is in terms that I hope every American can understand and appreciate.

With a $40 trillion dollar national debt, which is rising by $2.88 trillion dollars per year or $7.91 billion dollars per day if you’re into counting that way, it’s a sad fact that our nation’s debt issue will only get worse before the powers that be get the intestinal fortitude to tackle this issue head-on. If we truly want to help the next generation of Americans, we should solve the debt crisis now instead of kicking the debt can down the proverbial road for the next generation to handle.

Nvidia, SalesForce, Okta, and CrowdStrike all crushed their quarterly earnings and saw their stock prices soar on strong sales thanks to…you guessed it…AI!

And now Nvidia is acquiring Hugging Face for $12.9 billion dollars!

This is Nvidia's AI world. We all just live in it!

Meghan Markle, actress and Duchess of Sussex, is in discussions to make a return to acting, possibly in Guy Ritchie’s Netflix crime drama series 'The Gentlemen'. The gig would mark her first major scripted TV/streaming role since starring as Rachel Zane for 7 seasons across 108 episodes in the legal drama series 'Suits', where she brought in around $4 million dollars from that role alone.

The rumored news also comes as both Meghan Markle and her husband Prince Harry have just coincidentally moved from their $14 million dollar luxury estate in Montecito, California back to the UK to enroll their young children in British schools, and potentially rebuild their strained family relationships.

Tesla is officially ending production of its Solar Roof product. After crunching the numbers they’ve found that their solar tiles aren’t financially viable when you add in the steep installation costs. The solar roof tiles were originally sold to investors as a cheap way to generate off grid power for a mere $22 dollars per sqft, but that estimate didn’t include the installation cost which customers found out the hard way. Now the company is discontinuing the product, but they’re not abandoning solar. Tesla is building a new solar panel factory in Texas called the Project Crystal Sun, and it could cost as much as $10.1 billion dollars by the time the plant is up and running, and employ around 10,000 full-time high paying jobs.

In the real estate game cash has always been king, but now it seems all cash buyers are losing their swagger in the American housing market. Industry data is showing that cash purchases have fallen to 31.4% of all home transactions during the first 4 months of 2026, which is down from 32.3% over the same timeframe in 2025. Total residential home sales dropped 8.5% year over year, while actual cash purchases tumbled 11.2% as annual home price growth cooled down to just 0.2% compared to 1.8% in 2025 and 15.4% in 2021.

The National Association of Realtors found that all cash deals made up 26% of existing home sales in July, down from 31% in July of the prior year. Cash still accounted for more than two thirds of deals for properties priced under $100,000 dollars, and for more than 40% of sales for houses costing more than $1 million dollars.

You can thank rising inflation, and the seemingly never ending physical and trade wars, for rising mortgage interest rates that have spooked both investors and wealthy buyers who have been cutting back on using all cash to finance their real estate investments.

We just lost a true legend. There’s no other way of saying it. Dolly Parton passed away at the age of 80.

Besides her signature big hair, big smile, and big….um….attributes, she’s probably best known for her song ”Jolene”, the cover song that Whitney Houston sang ”I Will Always Love You”, and "9 to 5".

Dolly Parton has an estimated net worth between $450 million and $650 million accumulated over her long career. Forbes estimates that Dolly Parton’s music catalog and songwriting royalties are worth around $120 million dollars, with her publishing rights valued at $150 million dollars. Then we have Dolly Parton’s 50% stake in the Dollywood theme park in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee, which is valued at roughly $165 million.

Rest in power Dolly Parton.

I just wrote about SpaceX's Louisiana Starbase dreams last week, but now Elon Musk, the founder and CEO of SpaceX, has officially announced his plans to build a $100 billion dollar spaceport named Starbase Louisiana on Pecan Island in Vermilion Parish.

The planned Louisiana Starbase complex is expected to span 125,000 acres of coastal land, and is anticipated to create around 10,000 jobs with an average salary of $92,600, which to be honest is a great salary and above Louisiana’s average yearly salary of $55,130 according to data from the Forbes Advisor Average Salary by State.

SpaceX has agreed to make an upfront payment of $20 million dollars and has committed at least $25 million dollars annually in local property taxes over the next 25 years, in addition to a $25 million dollar charitable donation to the Community Foundation of Acadiana, you know….to grease the skids and ensure the project gets off the ground. No quid pro quo to see here!

The plan for the Louisiana Starbase site is to have 5 launch complexes with 2 Mechazilla launch pads each, with the goal of being able to launch 1,000’s of Starship rockets per year. Construction is expected to start in early 2027 with a target of beginning launches in 2029. To say this project is ambitious would be an understatement, but then again have you met Elon Musk?

Magnus Carlsen, the Norwegian chess grandmaster and 5-time world champion, defended his Esports World Cup chess title in Paris on August 15, 2026 by defeating Denis Lazavik 2 to 0 in the final match. He won the grand prize, and got paid $250,000 dollars for claiming the top spot in this year’s Esports World Cup chess title. If I had known you could make a living moving chess pieces around the board when I was a kid I probably would have played less Super Mario Brothers and spent a lot more time playing chess.

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The Business Behind The News is written, edited, and published by Chris Thompson.